


ante ruinam (before the fall)

by anthonyjcrowley



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Biblical References, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Fall (Good Omens), anyway it gets gayer, i dont even know what to tag, look yeah i dont know shit about god, the amount of things i had to look up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 05:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19739359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthonyjcrowley/pseuds/anthonyjcrowley
Summary: Set before even Lucifer fell.





	ante ruinam (before the fall)

**Author's Note:**

> thank u beanierose for editing. i haven't written fic in literal years but these gay fucking angels got me good.

Sometimes, Crowley would look at himself in the mirror and examine the form he had chosen for himself when he first fell, centuries ago.

Before then, things were different.

He went by an alternate name then, not much different to the one he uses now, but still far less appealing. He would roam Heaven without a care. While the others served at the feet of Gabriel, Michael and the others, Crowley had different plans.

Before the Earth was created, there was just Heaven. There were fewer of them, Angels as it were, then. They mostly sat around Heaven doing nothing while God created the Earth. They watched God slave away for six days and on the seventh, God rested. You know the story. The Angels had nout to do with anything, no real purpose just yet. The only thing they knew was that they were “part of the Great Plan” as Gabriel would say. Still says.

-

Crowley peered through the clouds, a new addition to the planet at the time, and saw Gabriel and a smaller Angel by a large apple tree in the Garden of Eden. They looked like they were talking seriously, examining the tree and pointing to different areas around it. Of course, later Crowley would learn that this Angel was Aziraphale and he was being told that he had been chosen to guard the apple tree.

His eyes wandered over to another part of the world. God was in the middle of creating the sea, its shimmer still to be perfected but the vast expanse itself already deep and ominous. At the edge of the sand sat a dark haired angel, one of the more beautiful ones he’d seen, with his toes dipped in the water and the wings on his back beating off sand every so often. While most of them had brilliantly white wings, his seemed to have dulled, looking almost grey. Crowley looked closer at the Angel’s face and saw that it was Lucifer. One of the more… rebellious of the lot. Crowley liked him, he was brave and outspoken and there was something about him that spoke to him.

While the Angel’s wings may not have been the brightest white, they were the biggest wings Crowley had seen on any of them. They used to say that the bigger your wings, the closer to God you were, but this did not turn out to be entirely true. Lucifer was the first to fall, after all.

“Spying on me, are you?”

Crowley jumped up, quickly closing up his hole in the heavens, and turned around to see Lucifer now behind him.

“N-no, you just caught my attention is all,” he stuttered.

Standing before him now, Crowley could see how beautiful he really was. If he was God’s favourite, he knew why. God had built him perfectly. His jaw, sharp and strong; his hair thick and fluffy; and his eyes, oh his eyes. They were like nothing Crowley had ever seen on an Angel before. They were a deep amber but if you caught them in the right light, you could see flickers of gold and red and orange, like a fire circling his pupils. 

“Caught your attention, interesting,” he smirked, the corner of his lips turning up ever so slightly. Crowley’s heart skipped a beat.

Suddenly, Lucifer’s gaze grew intense, and he looked deep into Crowley’s eyes. He stared back, seeing his own reflected in the whites of Lucifer’s.

“I have a question for you… Crowley, is it?”

“Yes, uh, Crowley. Ask away!”, he replied, a little more enthusiastically than he had intended.

“What do you think of all this?” He gestured at the floor beneath them, opening up a view of Earth at the spot where Crowley had just been looking. The ocean was a clearer blue now, the sands a little finer and the sun shone a bit brighter than before.

“What? The ocean? Looks cool I guess, I’m not sure what we need all that water for though,” Crowley tried to joke; he wasn’t as cool as he is now.

“The Earth. What God is building,” he gestured again, switching to the view of the Garden of Eden. Gabriel and Aziraphale still stood there. “What do you think of it?”

Crowley stood in silence, unsure of what to say. He hadn’t thought about it really. What did he think of Earth? He didn’t even really know what God was doing or what God had in store once it was finished. He didn’t really understand why they needed the Earth when they had Heaven. It just seems like a lot more to maintain for no real reward. More effort than it’s worth, really.

“I suppose… I don’t know. I guess I don’t really see the point of it but I’m sure it’s part of The Great Plan.”

“The Great Plan”, Lucifer scoffed. “Yes, I’m sure it is.” And he just walked away.

Gobsmacked, Crowley watched the Angel leave, his wings shaking. A downy feather drifted off the back of Lucifer as he walked, his wings looking a little darker than when he had appeared.

-

Aziraphale stood watching Gabriel intensely, trying to listen to everything he was telling him however he couldn’t help but notice that the apple hanging from the top most branch on the right side of the tree was hanging a little crooked. 

I’ll fix it later, he thought to himself. 

Bringing his attention back to the Angel that towered over him, he realised he had just been asked a question.

“Aziraphale, were you even listening?” said Gabriel, impatiently. “You know, if you’re not up for this, I can find another Angel more will-”

“Yes, yes of course I was listening!” exclaimed Aziraphale, “Make sure our new guests don’t touch the tree. I’ve even thought of putting up a handy little ‘Do Not Touch’ sign? What do you think? Oh! And I will keep watch from the surrounding trees, of course.”

“Mm, sounds good Aziraphale. Glad to have you on board, you will be instrumental in The Great Plan, I’m sure.”

“Ah, yes The Great Plan, of course!” Aziraphale nodded in agreement, a little too enthusiastically.

In truth, the Angel had no idea what the Great Plan was. He wasn’t really sure anyone knew what it was, at least not yet anyway. Things were only just beginning and for us to be so sure of some “Great Plan” we knew next to nothing about seemed a little ridiculous to him. But, Gabriel was an Archangel so he was in no position to question this. He would just do as he was told, for the most part. 

“I’ve got some other things to attend to now, Aziraphale. You know what you need to do.”

And with that, Gabriel was gone. 

Thank God, he thought to himself. The guy unnerved him, but he would do as he said. 

Aziraphale hadn’t been down to Earth much since God started work on it. He’d watched from Heaven as God slaved away night and day, which previously sounded like a ridiculous concept. You have the day time, where it is light outside and then the night time when it is not? What was the point? 

God had made much more progress now, working on the ocean if he remembered correctly. The trees that surrounded Aziraphale had a peculiar smell, something he could only describe as “earthy” because it didn’t smell anything like Heaven. 

He reached out and touched one of the leaves, which felt strangely waxy, and plucked it from its branch. Then, unsure of what overcame him, the Angel took a bite out of the leaf.

Angels don’t need to eat. In fact, eating wasn’t even really a thing at this point in creation so Aziraphale isn’t really sure why he felt the need to see what the leaf tasted like. It was bitter and left an awful aftertaste. He shook it off and vowed to never eat again, if that’s what it was going to be like. 

He heard a rustling behind him and turned around to see Lucifer. He and Aziraphale had bumped into each other on occasion but Aziraphale wasn’t his biggest fan. Not like some of the other Angels. Lucifer had a peculiar energy about him. He was strong willed, intelligent and beautiful like no other. He could be an Archangel if he wanted to but Aziraphale suspected he had some issues with authority. 

“Oh, Lucifer! What are you doing down here?” he asked, wiping the green tinted spittle from his robes.

“Taking a stroll, seeing what this Earth is all about. And yourself?” responded Lucifer, turning away from Aziraphale and towards the very tree he had been tasked with guarding.

“Well, you see, um,” he stuttered, scuttling behind Lucifer whose long strides made it hard to overtake him. “I’ve actually been tasked with guarding this tree.”

“Guarding this tree?”

“Uh, yes! We have some guests joining us soon and they aren’t to touch the tree. Part of the Great Plan or something.”

“Guests… they never said anything about guests,” Lucifer muttered to himself as lingered in front of the towering apple tree. “And again, with this Great Plan business.”

The light from the sun that pierced through the gaps in the tree’s branches bounced off of Lucifer’s wings, revealing that they were a little more grey than they were white. Aziraphale thought this was strange but chose to ignore it.

Lucifer shook his head and took off without a word, jumped back up to Heaven. But, as he reached the top, a single, dull, grey feather floated back down to Earth, landing at Aziraphale’s feet.


End file.
